NYTimes Olivier Roy: Why Do They Hate Us? Not Because of Iraq

[Wetzelbill]

July 22, 2005
Why Do They Hate Us? Not Because of Iraq
By OLIVIER ROY
Paris

WHILE yesterday's explosions on London's subway and bus lines were thankfully far less serious than those of two weeks ago, they will lead many to raise a troubling question: has Britain (and Spain as well) been "punished" by Al Qaeda for participating in the American-led military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan? While this is a reasonable line of thinking, it presupposes the answer to a broader and more pertinent question: Are the roots of Islamic terrorism in the Middle Eastern conflicts?

If the answer is yes, the solution is simple to formulate, although not to achieve: leave Afghanistan and Iraq, solve the Israel-Palestine conflict. But if the answer is no, as I suspect it is, we should look deeper into the radicalization of young, Westernized Muslims.

Conflicts in the Middle East have a tremendous impact on Muslim public opinion worldwide. In justifying its terrorist attacks by referring to Iraq, Al Qaeda is looking for popularity or at least legitimacy among Muslims. But many of the terrorist group's statements, actions and non-actions indicate that this is largely propaganda, and that Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine are hardly the motivating factors behind its global jihad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/22/opinion/22roy.html

[Oversea Visitor]

1. Bad guys dont get support.

Very simple. But Iraq and Afghan issues getting them lots of support.
Spin all you like on this issue. Reality is there right in your face.

US, attack on Iraq illegal hence US reputation down the drain
911 attack is bad, world grief with US
But now world grief for Iraq people. From Victim to Bad Guy

[Maple]

2. Heavens no

they just got bored one day and decided to go bomb something.

It's just a 'campaign of hate'...nothing whatever to do with a century of interference in their countries.

:sarcasm:

[wtmusic]

4. Somehow we're supposed to believe that entire legions of Muslims

are just crazy. Nuts. They enjoy hating, and instead of hating Paraguay they drew names of countries and came up with "US".

:hi:

[Wetzelbill]

5. Have you noticed the rash of articles like this today?

I posted two of them. Tom Friedman and this one. Polly Toynbee wrote another. I posted them not because I agree, but because I find them interesting.

It's not like bin Laden was reading the Bill of Rights in his cave one day and went berserk and it isn't the case that Muslims just flipped out for no reason and became terrorists. There are reasons why they do this, it's not condonable, but there are reasons. Dismissing these reasons only makes the problem worse.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. A whole century's worth of reasons....

British interference in and mismanagement of the Middle East following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the Anglo-Afghan wars; the US coup that unseated Mossadegh in Iran and put the Shah in power...the people of the region have a long collective memory and a lot of justifiable resentment, but I think it's certainly arguable that religious fanaticism compounds the problem.

[Wetzelbill]

7. I'd say so

bin laden uses fundamentalism as a way to rally the troops and recruit, that's why he always devotes the beginning of his statements or speeches to anti-semitic, xenophobic and racist rhetoric, but later on in the meat of his text he starts talking about policy. He couldn't use fanaticism in that way unless the policy existed in the first place. Since you mentioned Mossadegh (or Mossadeq either way) I will go with that. After Mohammed Mossadegh was overthrown for Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, you had the rise of a fundamentalist movement over a 25 year period. Ayatollah Rujollah Khomeini was able to foment the rise of that fundamentalism due to the hatred of the policy. You had a brutal dictator who was hated anyway, because of policy, then you had the rise of a movement stoked on religious fervor and anti-americanism, which eventually overthrew the dictator. Religion didn't cause anti-Americanism. The bad policy did. But, religious fanatics were able to capitalize on that hatred through their own movement and they fanned the flames of anti-americanism through fundamentalism. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but does that make sense?

[Spider Jerusalem]

8. Makes perfect sense...

bad foreign policy led to a vaccuum that was filled by fundamentalists exploiting the resentments of the people; the banner of jihad against the infidel drew a lot of recruits...and oppressed, poor and brutalised people (or those who think they are) are much more prone to heed the siren song of religious fanatics.

[K-W]

12. I would add that fundementalists are as much a product of history

as anyone else. There is no reason they had to turn into what they are now. Nothing in thier ideology demanded it. We have plenty of fundies in the US who would just as easily become extremely violent if put in the same positions they were.

In fact we probably have athiests in the US who would have just as easily become extremely violent if put in the same positions they were.

Really the blame game needs to stop. The buck doesnt stop anywhere, every single human actor in this drama is as much a product of the drama as a cause of the drama, even the cold calculating bureucrats in washington.

It is the system, the structure, the cycle, however you want to call it that must change. The way people interact must be changed because people will be people, the good, the bad and the ugly. Any attempt to blame one group or thing for what is a large chaotic system is scapegoating.

[K-W]

10. They need a stream of misinformation, because the truth is obvious.

There is more than enough information out there for anyone to see plainly where these attacks are coming from.

It takes a great deal of effort amongst the intellectual elites in this country ignore and obscure the facts.

[wtmusic]

3. What AQ statements is he talking about?

The statements refer specifically to retaliation for Western conquest of Arab lands. How much plainer can it be? :shrug:

[TomClash]

9. He forgot a few things

The US was supporting Osama in his quest for global jihad.

We are responsible for some of the 25,000 or 39,000 or 100,000 civilians killed in the Iraqi War. Taht seems a pretty strong motivation.

He morphs the Kenyan and Tanzanian Embassy bombings in '96 with the London Underground bombings of 2005 as "Al Qaeda" as if one centrally commanded entity produced both for the same reasons. This is simplistic.

[bemildred]

11. Oceania has always been at war with EastAsia.

These attacks on Airstrip One by Emmanuel Goldstein's running dog terrorists will no go unavenged.

[Igel]

13. Rudolph.

Somehow I missed how what he did wasn't somehow tied in with his beliefs. Maybe because they clearly were.

Bouyeri falls into the same camp.

One doesn't need to believe that their beliefs are the sole reason for their actions to accept that it's one of the reasons for their actions.

And selectively quoting the Qur'an is no more respectable than selecting quoting the Bible.

[allemand]

14. Excellent article, but easy to misinterpret.

Olivier Roy's main points are:

- no, al-Qaeda is not the vanguard of Muslim or Arab liberation as which they like to present themselves.

- when a British born Muslim becomes a suicide bomber, it has more to do with the failure of British society to integrate Muslims than with British foreign policy.

I think he is right.

This is an article about the roots of neofundamentalism, not about the war in Iraq (which he opposed).

Olivier Roy is "one of France's leading scholars of modern Islamism". He is not part of the American debate about the Iraq war.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18177

In a recent article, "L’erreur de l’Amerique" (America’s mistake), Olivier Roy denounced the Bush administration’s "ideologisation" of the struggle against terrorism, "which leads to choosing mistaken targets and diverting substantial resources to objectives that have nothing to do with terrorism",
http://www.eritreaplanet.com/more/WavesOfChaos.htm

Al-Qaida, label ou organisation ?
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2004/09/ROY/11440

Al-Qaida Brand Name Ready for Franchise
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/terrorwar/analysis/2004/0901terrorbiz.htm

[CJCRANE]

15. It's strange

that the Brazilian govt and Brazilians are very angry about one of their citizens being killed by a cop in England...

Yet, somehow a few muslims aren't affected by the deaths of up to 100,000 of their co-religionists in Iraq...?

This guy should grow up and get a conscience.

[allemand]

16. How many Brazilian suicide bombers do you expect to see as a result of

this anger? And how many Brazilians will decide to blow up their fellow citizens?

BTW, it's worth reading the article:

Conflicts in the Middle East have a tremendous impact on Muslim public opinion worldwide.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/22/opinion/edroy.php

[CJCRANE]

17. None

But if 100,000 brazilians had been killed they might have a more extreme reaction.

However, I was simply pointing out that the RW apologists always say that the Iraq war has had no effect on people when it's quite clear that the death of just one person can have a dramatic effect.